Caroline Tomes

Caroline Tomes
Caroline Tomes is a registrar in public health. Her academic background is in sociology, psychology and health. Caroline has many professional interests including health promotion (especially in areas considered ‘deviant’, such as mental and sexual health) and sustainable development.

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Do British newspapers breach suicide reporting guidelines?

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Caroline Tomes highlights a new study that explores suicide reporting in the arts sections of British newspapers. The study concludes that there is poor compliance with suicide reporting guidelines in British newspapers, but further research is needed before we can generalise these findings.

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Promoting safer sex in people with severe mental illness

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Caroline Tomes summarises a recent systematic review which finds that behavioural interventions can result in short-term increases in safer sex in people with severe mental illness.

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CAM: Many of us are using it, despite poor evidence. Whats going on?

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Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies are often perceived to be as effective as conventional treatments, more “natural”, less expensive, have fewer side-effects and are easily available without a prescription. But do these perceptions match up with the reality? Can CAM therapies be helpful additions to conventional treatments? This alludes to an interesting sociological question [read the full story…]

Yoga for schizophrenia: meta-analysis shows short-term quality of life improvements

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This blog entry is the second in a series which is examining the mental health benefits of yoga.  Last month I blogged about yoga for psychiatric disorders, and today I shall be looking specifically at the benefits for schizophrenia. The benefits of exercise and physical activity for schizophrenia are increasingly being recognised.  Regular exercise can [read the full story…]

Yoga for psychiatric disorders: systematic review shows some benefit but more research needed

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Here at Mental Elf HQ, several new pieces of research relating to yoga have come our way.  This blog is the first in a series examining the mental health effects of engaging in yoga. Yoga is a form of exercise (largely comprising physical postures and breathing) which originated in India over 5,000 years ago.  Many [read the full story…]